Just prior to resigning from the FCC, Commissioner Nathan Simington wrote an article for the Daily Caller that suggests that the FCC should consider regulating streaming video in the same manner as traditional video offered by cable companies.

Commissioner Simington recognized this is an unusual position to take for an Administration and FCC that is trying to eliminate regulations. For example, he authored an earlier article that suggested that the FCC DOGE itself, and get rid of a lot of unneeded regulations and functions.

Commissioner Simington’s article makes some good points. He says that online content “allows a handful of powerful players to grow larger and more monopolistic, often while avoiding even the most basic public interest obligations. . . The result is a system that favors consolidation.”

Cable companies are saddled with a lot of outdated rules that are a disadvantage in the market. Cable companies are forced to pay ever-increasing rates for the right to carry local network affiliates. Programmers of all kinds hold cable companies hostage and force them to accept and pay for a lot of programming they don’t want in order to get the programming they must have.

Commissioner Simington proposed two solutions to make the market fairer. First, he thinks that the rules against TV station consolidation should be eliminated. He says that allowing station owners to get larger will allow them to be more efficient and give them more market power. This has been a talking point for Republicans for many years.

His second suggestion is surprising. He suggested reclassifying online platforms as MVPDs (multichannel video programming distributors) which would put platforms like YouTube, Hulu, and FuboTV under the same regulatory rules as cable companies. This would impose the same outdated rules on these platforms that plagues cable companies and satellite TV. I find this extraordinary because it would expand the FCC’s regulatory authority at a time when it seems that federal regulation across the board is going in the other direction.

The problem with both of his ideas is they wouldn’t really fix the industry. Consider the slow death of linear programming. No amount of station consolidation will fix the fact that one of the primary reasons why people have abandoned traditional linear cable programming is that they love the idea of watching what they want when they want. There are still millions of homes dropping traditional programming every quarter. It was just announced this week that streaming subscriptions now outnumber traditional cable subscribers.

I have to wonder what regulating the industry would do to the large number of companies like Tubi TV, Pluto TV, Plex, and Crackle that offer free programming and make their money from advertising. Bringing these companies under the MVPD rules would add costs and almost certainly break the free model.

The real underlying problem for both cable companies and streaming companies is the cost of programming. For the last fifteen years, programmers have regularly increased the cost of programming at a much faster pace than inflation. Programmers also flex their muscles to force cable companies and streaming companies to carry and pay for programming they don’t want to carry. The culprit in the industry is the companies that create programming, and there has been no discussion of regulating them – if that is even possible.

This article brought something to mind I remember from an economics class on regulation. The professor regularly told us, “Regulators gonna regulate”, meaning that regulators will find new things to regulate if not kept in check by legislators. As the FCC eliminates large numbers of regulations, perhaps it needs to find new things to regulate to justify its existence.